8.55 – Build PeopleSoft Images with DPKs (Part 3)

As we have discussed in part 1 and part 2 of this discussion, Oracle is now shipping PeopleSoft Images with 8.55 and Deployment Kits(DPKs). Dan and I have talked quite a bit about our experiences using these DPKs with VirtualBox and NativeOS installments on Windows, so naturally Linux is up next. This is the OS that I spend most of my time in, so I have been excited to give it a try.

To get started, I took another read through the PeopleSoft Deployment Packages for Update Images Installation guide. Again, this can be found under Installation Documentation on the PUM Home Page. In this document it clearly states that Oracle Linux is supported for this installation. I normally don’t run Oracle Linux, so I was curious if it would work on other flavors. I gave it a try on both SuSE and Ubuntu without success. The bootstrap script basically fails right away, and I didn’t dig any further. So, I spun up a fresh lab install of Oracle Linux 7.2 and used that instead.

As with the other styles of DPK, the first step after you download the Linux .zip files is to extract the first file. Once extracted, you will find a setup directory which contains the bootstrap script psft-dpk-setup.sh. Before running this script, you will need to enable execution by running sudo chmod +x psft-dpk-setup.sh. After that, execute the bootstrap script and you are off and running.

I ran into a few issues with the installation, all related to dependencies(Update:More info here.). I ended up having to install all these packages to get past the issues:

After getting these installed, it was time to give it another try. Running the bootstrap script again was not needed for this. Instead, I simply ran puppet apply site.pp which needed to be executed from the /etc/puppet/manifests directory. This time everything ran to success.

I chose the default initialization process, but you may want to make a few changes in your deployment. The changes you are most likely to make are related to security. By default the DPK will create 4 local user accounts: psadm1, psadm2, psadm3 and oracle2. This may not fit in with your security polices, so changing this could be crucial. In the installation guide, search for Task 6-1, which will walk you through the changes needed in your psft_customization.yaml file. If you do choose the defaults, then take a look at Task 7-1. This will cover all the default installation directories, as well as the default users and how they are used.

As always, if you ran into any other issues or have other observations related to the Linux NativeOS install, please let us know about it in the comments below!

Update: If you want to learn more about the DPK, check out our new PeopleSoft DPK QuickStart course. This free course will introduce you to the DPK, show you how to use the DPK with PeopleSoft Images, and show you how to customize the DPK for your servers.

14 thoughts on “8.55 – Build PeopleSoft Images with DPKs (Part 3)”

In my first attempt to use the DPK with the NativeOS Install I am having troubles figuring out how to use this with Microsoft SQL Server. I see in the Install guide there are menu prompts that ask which database brand you are on but when I run the same install that is never an option and the installer just assumes Oracle and installs it. Has anyone tried installing this with Microsoft SQL Server yet?

I am attempting an install of the NativeOS DPK for PT Patch 8.55.06. I am applying the DPK to a fresh Windows Server 2012 R2 box and attempting to use SQL Server 2014 SP1 on a different server. I have found the DPK deployment to be very unfriendly to SQL Server. The Database option appears and I type in MSSQL. Even so, I have to manually install the SQL Server 2014 SP1 client locally (so that the DPK has access to the SQL client driver). It seems as though I have to prepare the SQL Server as well, creating the database in advance and perhaps implementing the “Manual Database Setup” procedure (normally used in the VCD procedure) running the createdb.sql, addobj.sql, connect.sql and create_accessed.sql scripts… just so the DPK can access an account on the SQL Server side. This is all a lot of extra work that I also thought the DPK should be doing for us… but it seems not so.

Hi guys,
Off-topic – is it possible to get a PeopleSoft demo instance up and running on a Macbook Pro? Or would we require somthing like Virtualbox to install a Windows OS and then have a PeopleSoft installation inside that?

My guess is that there would be lots of dependency issues with libraries, but Mac OS X is a Unix OS. I think you could get it working if you spent time getting each component installed and configured, but the easier option would be use use VBox or VMWare Fusion. I use VMWare Fusion to run all of my PeopleSoft instances.

Another advantage of the VM route – I take lots of snapshots with my VM when I’m testing things. Then I can quickly recover to a prior state if I mess something up or want to re-test it.

Hi, I run VirtualBox on my MacBook Pro. I created a Linux 7 guest and performed a Linux Native DPK install on there, all working ok for me. Also created a Windows 7 guest so I can use app designer and Change Assistant.

I am trying to do the same thing and installed a Linux guest on Mac and have PeopleSoft PIA running. I am creating another VM with Windows for App Designer. Did you download the client from eDelivery website or from PUM page? I am guessing you needed to install the Oracle SQL developer in Windows too right? Did you update the tnsnames in the Windows VM to point to the Linux VM?

Thanks for taking the time to post your ongoing experiences with the DPK install process. I am trying to figure out how to create a second pia site on the same pia domain using psft_customization.yaml. No idea what parameters I should set to do the equivalent of an Install action: ADD_SITE command during the site deployment. Any thoughts?

I’m a little confused by your question, so let me make sure we are using the same terms. The Host is the hardware you plan to run the VM on (laptop, desktop, server). So, I use a MacBook Pro as my Host. The Guest is the virtual machine running on VirtualBox.

If you want to run PeopleSoft on Mac OS X, VirtualBox will let you run any Guest OS you want. In my case, I use VirtualBox to run the PeopleSoft VirtualBox DPK, but you could also import the OVM templates into VirtualBox.

VirtualBox can also run Windows as a Guest OS, so you can use Windows (if you want).

okay… I have the VirtualBox installed on my MacBook, OS X 10.11.6, I have the image files downloaded and unzipped. I have the VBOX_8_55_01_SHELL.ova file. I import it in VirtualBox and start the VM, but it fails it’s looking for “a Shared Folder setup for the VM”

Not sure what exactly is looking for. What did I miss?
I noticed that the scripts that build the big, combined OVA file are only for Windows & Linux, so I guess that’s what I missed…? If so, how do I combine them in OS X to get the DPK is looking for?

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